El Desfile de los Locos y una Barbacoa

Two parts to this post:

1.  El Desfile

2.  La Barbacoa

_______________________________________________________
1.  El Desfile de los Locos
The Parade of the Crazies

This Sunday in San Miguel, there was a celebration called El Desfile de los Locos (The Parade of the Crazies).  Halloween is the closest American comparison I can make.  Basically everyone dresses up in outrageous, crazy costumes and parades through the streets throwing out candy to the spectators lining the streets.  Will bought us some silly masks (thanks, Will!) and went to join in the fun with our host family.  Here's a picture of Renee, Abish (our 14 year-old "niece" who lives with us), Will, me, and Jamie wearing our masks.

There were all sorts of crazy costumes and crazy people everywhere.  It was really great to get to experience this with our host family.  Especially our 5 year-old "nephew" Joshua.  We actually ended up participating in the parade on one of the floats throwing out candy to everyone.  Here are some pictures of the crazy things we saw on Sunday.

5 year-old Michael Jackson impersonator

This guy on stilts grabbed my hand and pulled me into the parade and then all the people started to dance around me.  I had no idea what was going on, but it was pretty funny.

___________________________________________________________

2.  Una Barbacoa

A Barbecue

After el desfile we went with our host family to their friend's house for una barbacoa.  They made grilled meat, onions, and chorizo (Mexican sausage) on the grill to put on tortillas to make tacos.  It was absolutely delicious, and I was absolutely stuffed 3 tacos and a few coronitas later.  

While the food was cooking, Karen (our "sister" in the house) taught us some Mexican dances.  Here's a picture of Will and Karen dancing.  

We listened to music, ate some good food, and hung out with some great people on the rooftop of the house with a great view of the entire city.  It was a great end to an already wonderful day.  

Hanging out with Joshua

The view from the rooftop

Will and Jamie hanging out

View of San Miguel on the drive home

Community Health Fairs

For the research we're doing here in San Miguel, we travel 5 days a week to different rural communities surrounding San Miguel to do our health fairs (we measure the children in la escuela primaria (elementary school), talk to them about nutrition and a healthy lifestyle, and survey them about their eating habits).  We usually start the day with the charla (talk) about what kinds of food are healthy and how exercise and sleep are important for your health.  

Then, we'll measure height, weight, hips & waist circumferences, and blood pressure.  These measurements seem very simple to us, but the families are extremely grateful for them.  Many don't even have access to a doctor but once a month.  After the measurements, we counsel the children and their mothers about whether the child is overweight or underweight and about the importance of exercise.  If they'd like, they participate in our survey where we ask about the foods they eat at home and at school.  So far, we've seen that there's less of a weight problem than a problem of malnutrition.  The children aren't getting the fruits and vegetables they need.  

To get to these communities, we have to travel on very isolated roads where there's usually a progression from paved to cobblestone to dirt to just plain rocks.  It gives a whole new definition to "rocky road." 

 The communities we go to are also really variable.  Sometimes they have better access to the things they need, but other times their situations are really disheartening.  For example, yesterday we went to a community way up in the mountains.  There were only 18 kids in the school (1st-6th grade), and there was no secondary school in the community.  When we spoke with some of the girls in 6th grade they said they were disappointed that they'd have to stop school, but the closest secondary school was over and hour and a half walk away.  As it was, some were already walking nearly an hour to get the primary school.  They end up working out on the land or in the home.  There was no running water in the community, and they had very little access to fruits or vegetables or anything that they weren't growing on their own land.  One of the teachers noted that this malnutrition has a large affect on their grades and ability to perform in school.  These teachers were assigned to this community for their first year after completing their program.  Since the community is so remote, they have a cot that they sleep on in the school room, and then they go home on the weekends.  At one community we went to, Los Torres, two of the three teachers have stopped coming all together since May, and there's only one teacher running between three classrooms to teach the children.

Here are some pictures from along the drive out to our communities.

At another we visited earlier this week, there were no men anywhere that we could see other than the school teachers at a two-room school house.  One room for 1st-3rd grade and one room for 4th-6th grade.  In all, there were about 30 kids.  After our health fair, we had lunch at the home of one of the mothers, Isabel.  She told us that all the men were living and working in the United States.  She herself had her husband and 18 year-old son there.  The community only had 150 people total with 35 families.

Despite these circumstances, everywhere we go the kids are absolutely great-- very eager and curious about everything we do.  I love explaining to them what my stethoscope is used for and what blood pressure means.  Today we were lucky enough to participate in the PE class at the community we went to.  We did some dancing and some soccer with the kids.  I'm having a really great time, and I'll share some more stories about the kids and places we go as time goes on!

My birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday, and I was lucky enough to spend it surrounded by great people in Mexico.  When I woke up in the morning and walked downstairs for breakfast, Will, Renee and Alex were there and began singing me Happy Birthday.  In the afternoon we went to los jardines botanicos (the botanical gardens) near our house.  They had some really great hiking trails and beautiful views.  It was really hot out though. I want to return on a day that isn't so hot!

That night, Kelly prepared tostadas for dinner.  Tostadas are like open-faced tacos that you put beans, lettuce, cheese, sour cream, and some sort of meat on top.  They were delicious!  Kelly is such a great cook, and I think this was my favorite meal yet.  Then we had birthday cake for dessert!  They're so great to celebrate my birthday like that with me.  I felt right at home.

Feed the Hungry

Part of our mission here in San Miguel is to establish good relations and contacts with people or groups in the town.  Since Proyecto Puentes de Salud (our group) is an annual trip of first year medical students, we hope that we can provide future groups with information they may need for their projects.  As part of this, we met on Saturday morning with a group called Feed the Hungry.  This organization was started twenty years ago, originally as a soup kitchen.  It now operates on a larger scale, establishing school kitchens in rural communities surrounding San Miguel.  They receive funding to build these kitchens in communities in need (those that don't receive meals from DIF) and hire local women to be the chefs.  They currently have 34 kitchens operating, feeding 4,000 children every school day.

What got me most excited were two projects that they've started working on.  One is a garden program where families are given supplies and information about how to plant and cultivate their own vegetables in their yards.  The other is a nutrition education program for mothers, teaching them which foods are healthy and how to make them. The meeting got me really excited about how we can make a greater impact in future years.  It's difficult right now because we can't do much since it's the first year, but we're figuring things out for the future!

The program relies heavily on volunteers, the majority of whom are retired Americans and Canadians living in San Miguel.  I've included some pictures here that I took at the main kitchen in San Miguel where they compile and package the food to be distributed to the 34 kitchens in and around San Miguel.  If anyone is interested in reading more about Feed the Hungry, their website is www.feedthehungrysma.org. 

A day at the market and around town

Today was a free day for us so we used it to explore the town some more and walked through the Artisans Market.  I don't have much to say about it, but I took some cool pictures!  Enjoy!

First day of health fairs

Today was our first day of conducting our health fairs.  We went to a small rural community outside of San Miguel.  It was really an eye-opening experience.  San Miguel is a such a wealthy town, and this poor community was just outside the city limits.  Apparently, there are a couple hundred small poor communities like this one surrounding San Miguel.  After about 10 minutes on main roads, we turned onto a gravel road that can barely be called a road.  We saw nearly no cars driving on it, and we were surrounded by desert and cactus with a few shacks.  It's difficult to describe it effectively without pictures (didn't bring my camera with me today).  Eventually we reached the school that had about 150 kids.  It was pretty overwhelming at first because they were all so eager for us to take their measurements.  We worked for 4 hours straight measuring their height, weight, hips, waist, and blood pressure and then counseling them on healthy practices. I was exhausted by the time we got back to San Miguel.  Next time we go to a community, I'll take pictures to share on here.

When we got home, I took a nice little nap then Jamie and I took a Spanish lesson from our own resident teacher, Joshua.  He's five years old and always eager for attention.  Here he is with Jamie, teaching her all the animal names.  He's fun to have around the house.  He's the grandson of Alex and Kelly, the couple that owns the place.  He lives here too.

After our little Spanish lesson, we went for a walk around our neighborhood, and I took some pictures.  The first is of Will, Renee, and Jamie outside of our new home.  The patio on the second floor opens to our bedroom.

The rest are just a few pictures I wanted to share of our neighborhood.

I've arrived!

After a 15 hour day of travelling yesterday, we've made it to San Miguel.  It only took two planes, two buses, and a taxi to get here.  We're staying at a house converted into a Bed & Breakfast by the couple who owns it.  Our hosts, Alex and Kelly (both Mexican despite they're very American sounding names) greeted us with open arms when we arrived and then gave us two large sandwiches each to make sure we were well fed!  Needless to say, I was exhausted.The four of us are staying in one room with a large closet and bathroom.  Here are some pictures!  The first one is of our bedroom.  My bed is the one in the corner.  The next ones are of our bedroom balcony and then our luxurious bathroom.  We are living a pretty posh life in Mexico.

This morning Alex made us all breakfast.  I'm so happy that we have all our meals provided for us!  It's very relaxing and exciting to try all the new and AUTHENTIC Mexican food.  For breakfast I had coffee (thank goodness), papaya, banana, granola, fresh honey from a local farm, and cactus!  It was all really delicious, and I'd never had papaya or cactus before.  The papaya was really sweet, and the cactus was made in the frying pan with melted cheese on top-- yummy!

This morning we had a meeting with el Departamento de Infancia y Familias (DIF) -- sort of like social services.  They're helping us devise our schedule for going out to all the small communities surrounding San Miguel.  We'll be doing our nutrition surveys and height, weight, blood pressure measurements there.  Right now it's a little overwhelming because we're not exactly sure how everything will work once we're there, but we're going to our first community tomorrow.  Hopefully after tomorrow we'll have an idea how the rest of the summer will work.  It's been great that DIF has been so open to working with us though.

This afternoon we also met with Dr. Q at his home in San Miguel.  He lives in a beautiful home and invited us to try some of his favorite tequila (which he likes to chase with beer-- such is Mexican life). He'll be really great to work with and is very excited about our project.  A large problem in Mexico is that parents think that chubby kids are healthy because they're well-fed.  Having a full figure shows that there's food on the table and the father is able to provide for his family.  This will be a problem we'll encounter during our time here.  Our hope is that we'll assess the situation in this area during our summer and then make plans for future groups to implement health interventions.